Social networking is one of the greatest breakthroughs of the 21st century. It gives the opportunity to be in touch with the nearest and dearest, finds new friends, share interesting media, play games, and even find a job.
Social networking is one of the greatest breakthroughs of the 21st century. It gives the opportunity to be in touch with the nearest and dearest, finds new friends, share interesting media, play games, and even find a job. However, it has also many drawbacks. The main drawbacks are the restriction of face-to-face communication, inappropriate, harmful content of many media, dangerous acquaintances, and so on. That is why, in many colleges and universities, a variety of social networks are limited and prohibited, especially for scholarship athletes. On the one hand, it may be regarded as a violation of human rights. However, to my mind, this decision is partially correct. Social networks are a kind of entertainment that interrupts students from studying. Nevertheless, it is possible to send their popularity in the right direction, making them a perfect tool for education.
Firstly, one of the major reasons why social networks should be used only with the purpose of education in colleges and universities is importance of face-to-face communication. When using the Internet for continuous chatting, students cannot fully express their opinions and choose appropriate arguments to support their position in class. In addition, messaging in social networks omit one very important aspect – nonverbal communication, which is an integral part of relationships between people in society. Moreover, chatting makes students shorten the spelling of words and change peculiarities of grammar rules. Thus, students tend to transfer such manner of writing into academic papers.
Secondly, social networks may have a negative impact on students’ consciousness. For example, on January 19, 2011, a 14-year old Kameron Jacobsen, a freshman at Monroe – Woodbury High School in Orange County, New York, committed suicide after being taunted on Facebook for his supposed sexual orientation. Moreover, social networks have especially harmful influence on athletes. Each careless post, such as a critical comment about the coaching staff or political strategies, can derail a promising career before it begins. For example, Yuri Wright, one of the famous prospects in the USA in 2012, was expelled from Prep School in New Jersey for posting sexual media on his page. Due to this, the University of Michigan also left him without scholarship offer.
On the other hand, such attitude towards students at colleges and universities may be regarded as a violation of human rights on freedom of expression. There are many cases, in which tutors exceed their authorities to get to know the peculiarities of students’ private life. For example, a Florida high school teacher undertook a series of actions to get to know who had written comments about her on Facebook. The teacher made students sign into their accounts from her cell phone and read private content for all classmates.
That is why the solution to this problem is to use a special created social network in educational purposes. For example, My Big Campus is a site that allows students to benefit from social networking functions such as closed messaging, online searches and so on behind the safety of Stephenville ISD Internet filters. Thus, it gives the opportunity to protect students from inappropriate content as it is monitored by Stephenville ISD technology staff and give them freedom for communication with each other. Moreover, this social networking was created only for educational purposes. Consequently, it does not interrupt students’ learning. In addition, the site offers all conditions for educationally productive collaboration between students and teachers.
In conclusion, the usage of social networks in many colleges and schools is limited and prohibited. The main reasons for it are students’ impossibility to clear state their opinions in face-to-face communication, dangerous influences of social media content on students’ consciousness and, in the case of athletes, destruction of future career because of inappropriate posts on personal pages. However, such actions of colleges and universities may be regarded as a violation of human rights. That is why, to my mind, the great solution is the implementation of special educationally dedicated social networks in classroom practice. It gives students opportunity to enjoy the freedom of chatting with peers while paying major attention on educational tasks.
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